


Against the sky

by cuneifire



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: 11th Century, 20th Century, English History, Gen, Historical Hetalia, Normandy Invasions, WW2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-30
Updated: 2018-01-30
Packaged: 2019-03-11 08:45:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13520709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cuneifire/pseuds/cuneifire
Summary: The last time England was invaded, he hadn't even a proper name.





	Against the sky

**Author's Note:**

> Why yes, I am capable of writing something other than Germany/Italy fluff.  
> Occasionally.  
> (Title was taken from Robert Frost’s Acquainted with the Night.  
> “But not to call me back or say good-bye,  
> And further still at an unearthly height,  
> One luminary clock against the sky”)  
> MILDLY IMPORTANT NOTE: For the first three parts of this story, England is referred to as Albion. This is because a) It was one of his older names and b) I like it (the other option was either Britannia or Englaland)

1066, September 30th

Pevensey, England

/

Albion swipes at his shirt, doing an ineffective job of getting the dirt off but a great job of rubbing the mud in. He’s been covered in his dirt for as long as he can remember, but that doesn’t mean he likes it. Sometimes he wonders why the whole world seems to be full of things that make him frown.

                Dirt, he doesn’t like. The weather, he doesn’t like (doesn’t like, but likes it more than dirt). The Roman Empire, he also didn’t (doesn’t- didn’t, can’t, hasn’t, won’t) like. Doesn’t like. Dislikes. Hates.

The words roll in his mind for some time as he stares off the ledge, feet dangling just above the drop and looking down at the battle.

He hates Normandy almost as much as he hates- hated- the Roman Empire.

                Swords clash in the distance below his feet. People are fighting, fighting against Normandy in the name of a king- he thinks it’s his king, and the other king, he’s Normandy’s. He thinks. Maybe they’re just people, people with armour and voices without kings. The whole king business seems off to him, what with who owns what and why and when and his brain’s already spinning from thinking about it. Not to mention all the marrying stuff, he thinks with a shiver (the marrying was even weirder than the fighting)

So he just watches the swords clash, almost smiling when the soldiers screaming “For Britannia!” put their swords through the soldiers who are not screaming his name (though part of him wonders at that; why aren’t they screaming his name? What are they fighting for? What are they _all_ fighting about? Why do they want his place- green field and high rocks and lonely cliffs- so badly?)

But he smiles nonetheless, because there’s only one thing Rome taught him that Albion bothered to remember and that was to smile when he didn’t know what was going on, smile when he was afraid, smile to spite those who wronged him.

He’d smiled a lot when Rome had been around.

                The battle is over, it speaks to him. There are some dead men, but they do not cheer for him, so perhaps that means they deserve it.

The soldiers (soldiers without armour) who cheered for him are still cheering though, shouting his names, all the different ones, over and over again, over the corpses of the dead men. Some of them are sad, it seems, their faces drop at the look of other fallen soldiers, the ones who were screaming his name but still fell. (Does that mean Normandy wins- Because Albion loses fighters too? Or does Normandy lose because he lost more fighters? The thoughts whirl over and over in Albion’s head, but he keeps them to himself. Not like anyone would hear him talk if he did.)

                He doesn’t add his voice to theirs, the men, the victors, but the smile on his face does not feel to be made of spite.

He jumps up to stand on the rock ledge, and then runs off.

/

1066, October 14th

Hastings, England

/

Albion is fighting.

                A sword slashes near his face, and he dodges, pulling back his blade to turn and slice through flesh and leather.

Albion has been fighting for the last while, after those Normans kept insisting all he knew was theirs. There were people- they called themselves his people, but he did not know there was something like that- people who wanted to fight for _him,_ for what they thought him to be. He hadn’t known why, but he accepted it though, because he didn’t like the way Normandy laughed at him and made fun of him and left his hands with scrapes and bruises, didn’t like how he kept trying to tell Albion that he didn’t exist anymore, because if that was true than he wouldn’t be here, right? Normandy didn’t make much sense.

                He pulls back with a start as he’s shoved back by a shield, knocked backwards onto his arms and dirtying his clothes further. But he stands up and does not bother with the dirt, because there is a battle in front of him, and that, as he is learning (through practice and experience and a lot of mistakes, it seems) is more important.

So he slashes the other fighter’s neck with a _clink,_ smiles briefly as his enemy falls before moving onto the next soldier. They don’t seem to end, the enemies (that’s what they are- his enemies, the people who oppose him, the people who want to take his home, people like Rome and his sibling and fucking Normandy, who want to stop him from doing- doing whatever he plans on doing after this), the invaders to fight. But he doesn’t mind, he likes it more than being alone. Likes the blood and clinking chain mail and the feel he gets when he _wins_ for once, when he can shove Normandy in the face and tell him that they have their own king, they don’t fucking need his. He hates Normandy more than dirt, more than he hated Rome (maybe not as much as Rome. He _really_ didn’t like Rome.)

                It doesn’t happen a lot though, they seem to lose more than they win, (Albion blames those weird northerners for that- they keep drawing his men away to the north, away from Normandy, so they have to fight two types of people at once, which doesn’t seem fair to him, but not much is, not much does). But Albion doesn’t really mind so much- at least, not when he’s fighting. When he’s fighting, when he’s _winning,_ it’s okay that there are people who are in his way, because that makes whatever is on the other side better, more worth getting. (Sometimes he likes to imagine that he’ll invade _Normandy_ one day, slap that stupid grin off his annoying face and ask how _he_ feels when half of _his_ country is being invaded by people _he_ doesn’t like. Stupid continentals, that’s what his people call them, and he’s starting to think them right.)

A flash of light flies at him, iron knife kicking up dirt as it plants itself in the ground next to him. A sword slashes at him again, so he ducks and picks up the knife, standing up again to throw it at the man in front of him, who staring down at him with a nasty grin and rotten beard that remind his too much of stupid Rome. He throws the knife, and swears when it just misses the kink in his enemy’s armour. Dammit, dammit, dammit, he’s going to die, and that’s going to hurt, and he’ll never get to beat the crap out of Normandy or see how strong he gets, and that sucks, and, and-

The blade falls on him, slashes through his chest, and Albion falls. A second before he hits the ground (the dirt, the _mud),_ he wonders what scar it’ll leave, if it’ll be worse or better than the ones Rome left, before he remembers that he won’t know because he’s going to _die._

And so he falls back, closes his eyes and wrenches in pain at the stabs in his chest and stomach and waits for the reaper to come, black eyes and soulless heaven.

                But the reaper does not come, and Albion does not die, or at least his breathing fails to cease. He hurts, but he doesn’t die, which is odd ( _bad,_ his mind whispers, _unnatural-)._ But he leaves that behind because he is still alive, although he is bleeding and being trampled over by heavy men and its opening up wounds that hurt a long time ago and not since then. He is alive, and therefore he can fight.

So he stumbles up, manages to shove himself up, past the soldiers (he can’t tell which are which now- everyone’s feet look the same) onto his feet, bits his lips as he looks around for another solider to hurt, another invader to drive out.

And he finds one, a man who tries to stab him from behind, and he swerves to face him (the man is a coward, some part of him hears in a voice that isn’t Rome’s, or Normandy’s. It’s- it’s _his)_ and end him like a true fighter.

And Albion kills him, lets blood all over his coat (better than dirt, better than mud, not as good as rain). Watches him fall to the ground and thinks _that’s what you get for trying to stop me- for trying to take what is mine._

/

1072, October 17th

Pevensey, England.

/

Albion sits on his ledge again, stares down at the battlefield with dangling legs and draped tunics.

It’s empty now, no people screaming for glory or kings or soldiers. It’s just green, and pleasant, and lonely, and the grass is now watered with old blood along with constant rain.

                It’s also not his anymore, which hurts more than any of that combined.

Rocks tumble down the cliff from Albion kicking them too hard, hitting green grass as his fingers dig into the weeds, dirt sticking underneath his nails with vigor, unleaving.

He doesn’t bother to pick it out.

                His eyes wander up and down the battlefield (-no, it’s not a battlefield now, just a field. Just a boring old stupid field.) with lips downturned. _C’est mal, c’est mal de toute,_ is what they’d like him to think, or at least the language they’d like him to think it in, but that’s not it. That’s the wrong language, not the one they should be speaking the courts and palaces and shouting on the battlefields (not this one, of course, but others). It’s not, it’s not _right._

Stupid is the right word, or maybe ‘absolutely bloody fucking ridiculous’ is more like is. He can’t believe he has to speak Normandy’s language (and it’s a stupid language at that- who gives a fucking _rock_ a gender?) in his own land. (territory? nati- he’s not sure what to call it, because it’s not his anymore, but he wishes it was, so maybe that makes it partially his.)

                But he has to, has to has to has to, because it isn’t his palace anymore, nor his land, his rocks, his sea.

The dirt under his nails is really annoying.

                The sun’s just rising, he thinks with a start that he’s been up all this time. He can’t sleep anymore, can’t sleep when there’s still bloody _invaders_ in his land (although sometimes he dozes off, because living without sleep is turning out to be really hard)

The sun shines over the cliffs with the rising dawn, the absence of fog leaving an unusual amount of clarity of the light, his skies (and they are _his,_ not a question to it, and Normandy can go shove nail rotted club up his if he thinks differently) unobscured by fog.

                The light creeps over the field as he stares out, over the rolling hills of his land and his castles and right on to the sea after that and whatever else stares out beyond such, and he cleans out the dirt from his nails, stubborn as it is.

One day, he thinks as he stares to- to whatever lies beyond such horizon, (one day he’ll know what that is, one day he won’t _have_ to wonder because he’ll know, he just knows it).

                One day all of it will be _mine,_ my land will be mine once again, and Normandy’s too, and the rest of that continent, and whatever lies beyond the everlasting reaches of the sea.

And he will not, will fucking not, let _anyone_ take what is his, ever again.

( _Il ne va ne pas laisser Normandy gagner, si ça c’est que Normandy veut qui’ll dit, ça fait pas de difference si il a gagner aujourdui, car Angleterre va gagner pour le reste du temps._ _Sans question.)_

.

.

.

/

London, England.

September 7th, 1940.

/

                A shudder runs through him, and England looks out the window, wide eyed.

_-Could that be?_

And it was.

                He had listened to his politicians for days now, heard about and fought against the Germans and their air force attacking his, but he did not expect this.

England did not expect to be bombed.

                He doubts anyone expects to be bombed, but he especially did not expect himself to be bombed. His politicians had so rarely discussed it, because it seemed too much a joke- Britain, the isolated island nation not invaded for decades, hold centuries, that held the best naval and an (admittedly that could stand to be improved but still effective)air force - attacked? And besides, should they, the Royal Airforce would defend well, and the civilians would be fine. The Germans were atrocious, but surely they would not bomb innocent people. Surely.

But it did not seem so preposterous now, what with panicked citizens and his people lying dead on the streets with mangled corpses and France already having been taken, and that _fucking Luftwaffe fucking krauts and fucking America for not-_

Deep breath. He needed to keep calm. He was England, he’d been alive for longer than two bloody millennia, he could handle this, he’d handled worse. Much, much worse, definitely-

                He hands were shaking.

His tea was spilled.

His house was clean. If nothing else.

                “FUCK!” he screams, dropping his teapot with a bang and a clank and a shatter. He couldn’t even calm himself with a cup of tea- that had been his last ration, and it wasn’t as if this war was going to be ending anytime soon, and now his teapot was destroyed and _why on earth was he on his knees and why were his hands bleeding oh that’s just because the you dropped the fucking teapot England you idiot and now you’ll never get it back and now you’re bleeding, bleeding like you always are, bleeding like the fucking broken heart you a-_

He did not follow that line of thought. He did not _think,_ he did. And it was better, for now, for that way.

                And so he picks up, himself first, washes his hands and wraps them in bandages, breathes in three times before opening his eyes again and beginning to pick up the ceramic cracked all over the boards of his floor and leaving it on the table.

It clinks, but does not fall, so he leaves it there for now.

                He cleans the stains next, runs a cloth over the blood on the floor, soaks up the tea and does not let himself think of anything other than cleaning up this fucking tea, of finishing his task, of the sounds that people make when they are at their worst, when they are terrified, what a scream that mean you fear for your life exists to be. He does not think of bombs or Germany or Italy or Japan (fucking traitors, the two of them) or France (he can’t, England won’t) or America (he could, but he still won’t, because he doesn’t pay his debts in blood or brokenness, he pays them in cash) or Australia or Canada or New Zealand or Poland. Does not, cannot, will not.

                Instead, he picks himself up and does not cry. Instead, he picks himself up and wrings out his bright white cloth, now stained with dark red. Instead, he stares blankly out the window in complete stillness and does not speak.

Instead, he stands in silence until he cannot bear it anymore, and slams his fist down on the counter to remind himself that he is still alive.

                When he finds that he is, for pain is a very bad liar, he pulls back and makes a list. Mentally, of course, it’s not worth the cost of paper. First, he will find himself a new teapot. Second, he will buy more tea. Third, he will go to his parliament, and very, very calmly, tell the world that this is not the end of him. For it is not, it will not be.

He’d plant a flower in his broken teapot too, he thought as his hands slowly ceased shaking, as his heart rate calmed. He’s plant a flower in that teapot and water it with the blood of some dead krauts, that’s what he’d bloody well do. Even if it required getting dirt on his hands.

/

London, England.

August 13th 1940

/

England’s hand slams down on the chair, the other hand gripping his fire for dear life.

                He is falling, and in what is proving a rather predictable pattern he refuses to let such happen.

His foot slams on the steel of the floor with a swear of “Fucking damned Messerschmitts” and a smile that really is more of a grimace, but he calls it a smile because if he called it a grimace than he wouldn’t have smiled for the last year.

So, he smiles as he fires at the damned krauts, dropping their bloody bombs on _his_ city, his land, and smiles some more when a plane goes down, smiles wider when another does.

               His radio crackles. He should really clean it, it’s grimy and crusted with dirt from over and misuse.

“Kirkland, we’re getting messages to retreat, we should really-“

                Something smashes into the radio, and it takes him a second to realise it’s his hand.

“Fucking bloody hell no” Someone says, and that also appears to be him, seeing as there’s no one else around.

He fires another round, ignoring the uptick in his heart rate as his squad turns tail, retreats, leaves him. He’ll have to say his radio got shot. (he doesn’t run over how that would be possible, but it doesn’t matter because-)

                And he’s smiling now, actually smiling for a reason that evades him completely. Surrounded, completely within enemy fire, and smiling. (He wonders briefly if he can die, if whether his death means his country’s death such as his country’s means his, if if if but he cuts himself off because that’s not helpful, _not helpful in the fucking least-)_

And fires like a madman.

That night, when he comes home to a paper weight that remains on his desk, unshaken from no fucking bombs in his city, not today, not here at least, he smiles. He is it, the last light of democracy in Europe, and he will stand tall, refuse to let them take him alive.

Regardless, regardless of the grim and dirt under his fingers, regardless of the shake in his smile.

/

Tilly-sur-Suelles, France.

June 10, 1944

/

The village is secured, but destroyed.

Nearby gunshots ring in England’s ears, and he’d be covering them if he wasn’t half deaf already and in high risk of being shot himself.

                _Fucking Kraut,_ he cursed for what felt like the millionth time in these last five years.

He tells himself the operation isn’t going badly, that this will be a success, that the entirety of Overlord isn’t just absolute fucking insanity compiled with ruthless hope, but it isn’t working, it isn’t working, it isn’t _bloody damned fucking working_ and good lord he hopes to god that America and Canada are doing better than him right now.

His shoulder hurts, he thinks as he reloads his gun. His shoulder hurts and he hates Caen and the Germans are going to fucking pay.

He leans down into the tank and gits his teeth at the mud on his uniform. The bloody stuff won’t come out no matter what he tries. He feels his eyes briefly close shut, before remembering where exactly he is and shooting straight up to stare at his enemies, tanks just barely rolling out of sight. They’re still firing, but it’s obvious who’ll win this fight.

They’re going to lose. They’re going to lose and this is all pointless and France will die and America will _rage_ and England will, well, England will continue on, England will continue on until he ceases to be capable of seeing what is in front of him.

A bullet grazes his shoulder, and he falls back, land in the dirt, the mud. That, of all things, anchors him, through the pain, to a moment, not to here and now but to then and there, to another battle centuries ago, fought in his homeland, not here, not here, never here.

And there is dirt underneath his nails, something of which should not concern him in the least, but it does, regardless, even as he returns to his feet and swipes a trembling hand at the trigger of his gun.

                Pictures flash before his mind; grainy from age, grainy from blood and pain and tears, but there regardless, and suddenly he’s not here amidst the bombs and bullets, but rather coated in dirt, hands warm with blood and the sweat on his brow and knuckles white from gripping the leather-shacked handle of his blade, could you call it such, in desperation, should it be the sole thing between him and his mortal fate. Back then, it was. Back then, he was not invincible, as he was afterwards, as he do obviously fails to be now. Back then, he held the world in the brightness of his eyes. Back then, he was so much more and so much less and so _not what he has become but rather what he is._

-And he blinks, and it’s over, he’s back on the (French) dirt, kneeling on the dirt again before rising and facing the day, or more accurately the dawn, the dark edges of night just fading into blazing, bloody red.

He bits his lip, and turns back to his battle. The one here, not in his mind.

Things are different, of course. It is no longer him being invaded, (though it was; his shoulder stills burns and his people still mourn, but they are strong, they are _British,_ and they will survive), France is no longer his enemy but his ally (A fact which never ceases to make him wonder if his whole world has truly fallen to pieces). The weapons are no longer swords and sticks but bullets and gas and tanks and bombs that still ring in his nightmares on especially bad nights.

But there are- something- something _remains-_

                He finishes reloading his gun, and stares at the German battalion ahead. Cocks his pistols, and aims.

Some things simply do not change.

**Author's Note:**

> Historical notes:  
> -The first three parts of the story take place during the Normandy invasions of 1066, in which (skipping a lot of complicated monarchy stuff) French soldiers led by Duke William the second invaded England, hoping to take the crown. The second three parts take place during world war two.  
> -William landed in Pevensey on the 28th of September 1066. Although he didn’t face any major opposition until the battle of Hastings on October 14th, I imagine British people wouldn’t be too fond of some French kind marching in and saying he owned their land. Henceforth, this isn’t exactly historically accurate. Forgive me, god of history nerds. Also, the mentions of Rome are a reference to the Caesar’s invasions of Britain (55 and 54 BC) along with the Roman Conquest of Britain during 44 BC, the last time before this that England was truly invaded (discounting a Roman revolt or two).  
> -The battle of Hastings took place on October 14th 1066, the current King of England, Harold Godwinson (also the brother-in-law of William, family reunions must have been fun) marching south after fighting and defeating the invading Norwegians in the north. In doing so, he left a fair portion of his troops in the north, and what remained of his soldiers were exhausted. The English were defeated and the Normans took control.  
> -Resistance against the new Norman rule lasted for a while, with William having issues taking the throne until 1072. Revolts took place in 1069 from English noblemen hiding out in Scotland, but they were sieged in their castles and later killed, with increased force being used to keep the English in line. The reason Albion is speaking French is because the Normans imposed French as the language of the court, much to the displeasure of the English and especially the common people, who came to see French as the language of the upper class and not the common language.  
> -Translation notes:  
> C’est mal, c’est mal de toute- It’s bad, all of it’s bad  
> Il ne va ne pas laisser Normandy gagner, même si ça c’est la langue que Normandy veut qui’ll dit dedans, ça fait pas de difference si il a gagner aujourdui, car Angleterre va gagner pour le reste du temps. Sans question.- He will not let Normandy win, even if that’s the language Normandy wants him to say it in, it makes no difference, because England will win for the rest of time. Without question.  
> -September 7th, 1940 was the first day of the Blitz, the German bombing of England. The Luftwaffe was the German air force. By this time, America had not yet joined the war, despite the efforts of British parliament. Also, the UK started rationing during September 1939, the rationing becoming more sever during 1940 with added restrictions on sugar, fruit, petrol, meat, tea and others. The rationing was necessary due to Britain being an island, which was frequently suspects to cut offs from supplies to due its precarious position.  
> -The Battle of Britain went on from the 10th of July to the 31st of October 1940, and was an entirely air force combat in the skies of Britain, fought primarily between the British Royal air force and the German Luftwaffe. The Messerschmitt Bf 109E was a commonly used German aircraft, whereas the British generally used the Hurricane Mk I model, and also (though less so) the Spitfire Mk I model. The particular battle England is in is referred to as Aldertag, or ‘Eagle day’, a plot by the Germans to ruin the British air capability. It failed, the British winning it and later the battle of Britain.  
> -Operation Perch was the part of the British attempt to retake the French town of Caen, part of the larger, overarching Operation Overlord that followed D-day. The English and Germans fought mainly in tanks in a nearby village, the battle ending with a German victory and an Allied setback.


End file.
